Google has just made our job a lot harder:
Google Changes the Adwords Keyword Tool - For the Worse : INForum.in Blog
Google Changes the Adwords Keyword Tool - For the Worse : INForum.in Blog
I don't use google's adword keyword tool unless it's for a venture within the US. The results for countries outside the US are seriously overinflated. More often than not I find it returns US search terms as well as the country I have selected. Not sure when the latest changes took place, but I stopped using the keyword tool a few months ago.
If I want a general idea of search volume I'll use a proxy server related to the country in question. Also, I find google's insight tool has some value.
A good point - lately the results seemed more and more incorrect - perhaps that was a prelude to this change.
Google Insight tool is also good. It's a good way of testing whether you're getting accurate results from the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. However, the Insight tool doesn't provide absolute numbers, which are important.
Yes precise search volume would be fantastic, but we have to realise is there is no single magic bullet atm. The best approach would be to use a number of different resources. Although these results may be generalised, if they're all saying the same thing then they verify each other.
Agreed, but most data sources seem to be American-centric. This was one of the few tools that provided good India data.